iPhone 4S battery woes may continue past iOS 5.1

Apple recently pushed out a fix to help some iPhone 4S users who were experiencing some battery life problems. The reaction to the fix has been mixed, with some users saying it improved the battery and others saying it only seemed to make things worse.

The iPhone-maker pushed out a beta of iOS 5.1 earlier this week, which is also expected to include further measures to improve battery life, but already reports surfaced that the beta does not have any effect on the battery life issues either.

The problem, however, might not have anything to do with any major changes in iPhone 4S, and may be just a symptom of the smartphone packing more features. "iOS 5 may simply be using more data transmission or running more background processes to support its new features,"ABI Research mobile device expert, Michael Morgan, told Ars.

"There is also some potential impact of iCloud services."

Some users reported that turning off Siri's "raise to talk" feature, or reducing the number of services that sync data to the iPhone, can boost the battery life noticeably.

Morgan said that software. not any hardware changes in the iPhone 4S, is to blame. "We tore down the 4S and tested some of the major components, including the new A5 processor," Morgan said.

"Nothing that we tested was significantly different from the iPhone 4, and power draw was right where we expected it to be."